Among the various criticisms levelled at the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, signed on March 5, 1931, is that it failed to secure the commutation of Bhagat Singh’s death sentence.
Some critics have alleged that Mahatma Gandhi, knowingly or not, threw Bhagat Singh under the bus simply in order to get the deal signed. What does the historical evidence suggest?
Lahore Conspiracy Case & Bhagat Singh’s trial
Bhagat Singh was arrested for bombing the Central Assembly in Delhi on April 8, 1929. But it was the Lahore Conspiracy Case for which he would eventually be sentenced to death by a Special Tribunal set up by Viceroy Lord Irwin.
The Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA), led by Bhagat Singh and Chandra Shekhar Azad, had killed British police officer John P Saunders on December 17, 1928 to avenge the death of Lala Lajpat Rai after a British lathicharge on a peaceful protest.
Three HSRA members — Bhagat Singh, Shivram Rajguru, and Sukhdev Thapar — were sentenced to death on October 7, 1930 after an extremely controversial trial.
“It is doubtful if there was any political trial in which the regime’s grim determination to ‘evict’ its political foe from the scene was accompanied by such egregious violations of the norms of justice and was matched by such willing compliance by the judges in that aim as in Bhagat Singh’s trial,” A G Noorani wrote in The Trial of Bhagat Singh: Politics of Justice (1996).
Because of the way the Tribunal was set up, little legal recourse was available after the sentencing. In any case, the defence soon exhausted the few options available to it. A political settlement was the only plausible way to save Bhagat Singh from the gallows.
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Gandhi, Irwin, and a pact to end Civil Disobedience
In 1930, Gandhi launched the Civil Disobedience Movement with his famous 24-day march to Dandi. After he broke the so-called salt laws, protests erupted across the country.
Police launched a brutal crackdown, and thousands of freedom fighters including Gandhi were arrested. On January 25, 1931, Viceroy Irwin announced the unconditional release of Gandhi and other Congress leaders to facilitate negotiations.
The Gandhi-Irwin Pact was followed by the release of all political prisoners who were not convicted of violence, remission of fines, and return of some confiscated lands. Government employees who had resigned from service were treated leniently.
The Congress agreed to end the Civil Disobedience Movement and take part in the Second Round Table Conference later that year.
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Bhagat Singh: A glaring omission in Gandhi-Irwin Pact
Gandhi’s talks with Irwin began less than a week after Bhagat Singh’s final appeal was rejected. As the negotiations progressed, there was expectation that Gandhi would ensure that the young revolutionary did not hang.
“Gandhi alone could have intervened effectively to save Bhagat Singh’s life,” Noorani wrote. However, “He did not, till the very last,” he said.
In his autobiography Sinhavalokan (1951-55), Bhagat Singh’s comrade Yashpal wrote: “Gandhi considered it moral to put government pressure on the people for prohibition [of alcohol] but he considered it immoral to put people’s pressure on a foreign government to commute the sentence of Bhagat Singh…”
In 1970, journalist D P Das concluded based on archival research that Gandhi “genuinely believed that the Delhi Pact was much more important than the lives of one revolutionary here or another there.” (‘Gandhi and Bhagat Singh’ published in Mainstream Weekly)
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Das criticised Gandhi’s apparent doublespeak — telling the public that he was trying his best to secure Bhagat Singh’s release even as he allegedly set with the Viceroy a suitable time for his execution.
Gandhi’s strong disagreement with Bhagat Singh
Das’s thesis was supported by the fact that Gandhi was extremely critical of Bhagat Singh’s actions, more so than many others in the Congress, including Jawaharlal Nehru.
Gandhi described the bombing of the Central Assembly in Delhi as the “criminal act of two mad youth”. At the Congress’ Karachi session, held three days after Bhagat Singh’s execution on March 23, 1931, Gandhi spoke of the revolutionary’s “error”.
“You must know that it is against my creed to punish even a murderer, thief or a dacoit… But I want you to realise Bhagat Singh’s error. The way they pursued was wrong and futile. I wish to tell these young men with all the authority with which a father can speak to his children that the way of violence can only lead to perdition,” Gandhi said.
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Too little and too late: Gandhi’s pleas for mercy
Others say it is unfair to claim that the Mahatma did not care about Bhagat Singh – in fact, he had repeatedly pleaded the revolutionaries’ case to Irwin. This is not entirely wrong.
Gandhi and Irwin discussed Bhagat Singh on multiple occasions. As early as May 4, 1930, Gandhi had objected to the creation of the Special Tribunal. He wrote to Irwin: “You have found a short cut through the law’s delay in the matter of the trial of Bhagat Singh and others by doing away with the ordinary procedure. Is it any wonder if I call all these official activities a veiled form of Martial Law?”
During the negotiations for the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, he brought up the case of Bhagat Singh on February 18, 1931, although he did not take a particularly strong position. Mahadev Desai wrote in his diary that Gandhi had told the Viceroy that although it “has no connection with our discussion, and it may even be inappropriate on my part to mention it… if you want to make the present atmosphere more favourable, you should suspend Bhagat Singh’s execution”.
But Gandhi never officially asked for commutation, and the Viceroy refused to suspend the execution.
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On the morning of March 23, the day of Bhagat Singh’s execution, Gandhi once again wrote to the Viceroy asking for a suspension of the sentence. But his pleas were rejected.
An enduring, unresolved debate
Historians sympathetic to Gandhi have argued that he could not have done much more.
V N Datta wrote in the Mahatma’s defence: “I think the assumption that Gandhi and Irwin were sovereign shapers of events so stridently bruited is questionable. Things happen differently in the historical realm. Gandhi and Irwin were not the repositories of power because they were working under constraints, which set limits to their actions.” (Gandhi and Bhagat Singh (2008))
Others like Noorani dispute this, and argue that Gandhi never put real pressure on the British to stop the execution. “On the morning of March 23, Gandhi could have had no reason to believe that his plea for clemency at the very last minute stood any chance of acceptance by the Viceroy,” Noorani wrote.